A Univerity of Sydney Ph.D. student has recreated a tiny piece of the universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed. Linda Losurdo, a Ph.D. candidate in materials and plasma physics […]
If you’ve ever sat by a quiet pond and tapped the surface of the water with your finger once every second, you’d expect to see a ripple travel outward once every second. In the world of classical physics, the effect follows the cause in a predictable, rhythmic march. But imagine for a moment that you […]
Authors: Maxime Aubert, Professor of Archaeological Science, Griffith University; Adam Brumm, Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University; Adhi Oktaviana, Research Centre of Archeometry, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional Indonesia (BRIN), and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Professor in Geochronology and Geochemistry, Southern Cross University When we think of the world’s oldest art, Europe usually comes to mind, with famous […]
Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets. The findings, using new data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) tells us more about how this invisible substance helped pull ordinary matter into galaxies like the Milky […]
Could your parents’ lifestyle choices affect how long you live? And could this effect not be directly related to your genes? Scientists studying my favourite roundworm (C. elegans) have discovered a surprising answer: yes, they can. Why does the offspring live longer? Researchers at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus made an unexpected discovery while studying aging […]
One of the most fascinating ideas in physics is how we can turn heat into useful work. This is the basic principle behind all sorts of engines, like the ones that power cars or generate electricity in power plants. For over a hundred years, scientists have relied on the laws of thermodynamics to figure out […]
Our planet has experienced dramatic climate shifts throughout its history, oscillating between freezing “icehouse” periods and warm “greenhouse” states. Scientists have long linked these climate changes to fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, new research reveals the source of this carbon – and the driving forces behind it – are far more complex than previously […]
Astronomers have, for the first time, captured a detailed snapshot of planetary systems in an era long shrouded in mystery. The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS), using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has produced the sharpest images ever of 24 debris disks, the dusty belts left after planets finish forming. These […]
Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear with a knife during a psychotic episode. Ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky developed schizophrenia and spent the last 30 years of his life in hospital. Virginia Woolf lived with bipolar disorder, eventually taking her own life as she felt another deep depression beginning. Many famous creative artists have lived […]
Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over the supercontinent Gondwana, drying out many of the vast, shallow seas like a sponge and giving an “icehouse climate” that, together with radically changed ocean chemistry, ultimately caused the extinction of about 85% of […]